Six financial projects have been awarded funding of up to £30,000 each from the FCA as winners of its economics research competition.

The contest aims to increase understanding of how regulation can support economic growth.

The competition, launched in November, attracted 43 entries from 41 organisations, including academics, think tanks and consultancies.

Kate Collyer, the FCA’s chief economist said: “Such innovative research proposals will help us better understand how regulation can enable growth. We look forward to working with participants to drive meaningful change.”

The FCA said growth was now central to its mission. Last year, Parliament set the regulator a new secondary objective to support growth and competitiveness over the medium to long term.

The FCA said the objective of the competition was to: widen and deepen the FCA's evidence base on growth and competitiveness; introduce fresh and innovative thinking to the challenge of growth; and provide actionable insights to inform future policy and strategy development.

The six successful projects each receiving up to £30,000 were:

• LSE Growth Lab – improving measurement of productivity in UK financial services. The research aims to understand the interplay between productivity in financial services and macroeconomic risks. London School of Economics (LSE) Growth Lab will develop a comprehensive risk framework to guide policies, exploring how regulation can balance promoting growth with risk.

• Edinburgh Innovations Ltd – enhancing competitiveness through increasing export volumes via foreign direct investments. The research will help shape the UK's financial services competitiveness by examining how regulation influences firms' business and location decisions post-Brexit.

• Beauhurst (Business Funding Research Ltd) – risk appetite for innovation and productivity in private financial services companies. Beauhurst will identify where high-growth firms are emerging in financial services sectors, what incentives and barriers they face to scaling up and how this links to risk exposure.

• University College London – risks in the UK fintech sector: implications for consumer credit and economic growth. UCL will study tail risks in fintech firms using state-of-the-art statistical methods. The research will discuss the implications of these tail risks in fintech firms for consumers, economic growth and the policy implications for the FCA.

• University of Birmingham – access and demand for new listed firms’ subsequent financing rounds. The University of Birmingham will study demand and supply side factors affecting access to finance of initial public offering (IPO) firms in the UK. The research will provide recommendations for regulatory frameworks that better align financial markets with the needs of IPO firms.

•Fathom Financial Consulting – how regulatory changes may have reshaped financial stability and growth risks since the global financial crisis. The research will investigate how post-global financial crisis (GFC) regulatory changes have reshaped financial network structures and risks across domestic and international markets

The winners have until 31 March to complete their research.